The ClientWise Blog

It’s no secret that there is a lack of young financial advisors in the industry. Only 5% of the 315,000 advisors working in the U.S. are under the age of 30. This is due in part to a hiring freeze in 2008, a direct result of the economic crisis, as well as a number of other more recent contributing factors.

Your client advocate and professional advocate relationships, or centers of influence, are incredibly important for the success of your business. As a seasoned advisor once told me: “Your referrals are as valuable to your business as your clients, if not more so.” I would add to that, that your client advocate and professional advocate relationships are only as valuable as you allow them to be, through the knowledge and understanding you provide them of your business.

We have been discussing the importance of financial advisors connecting with Professional Advocates and Loyal Client Advocates collectively over the past few weeks. It’s important to recognize the subtle differences that exist in each process, however, and to take the appropriate measures to ensure you are working with these differences in mind when looking to your centers of influence for referrals.

Even for the most experienced financial advisor, it’s never “comfortable” to approach a well-respected client or colleague to ask about introductions to potential clients. As business owners, we feel incredibly grateful and indebted to those who serve us in our business, and want nothing more than to show our appreciation and help, rather than have to ask them for help.

When was the last time you sat down with a CPA in your referral network? Probably not in the last few weeks. As an advisor, you are likely to be busier than usual this time of year, but it’s nothing compared to the CPAs in your network who, at the mercy of their clients’ timelines, are slaving over financial documents and tax statements, hammering to meet deadlines imposed by the IRS.

What is the biggest threat to your team members’ happiness and engagement? You might presume it’s their feelings regarding their compensation, or perhaps perceived lack of room for growth. In actuality, the biggest threat to their happiness is when they are hired for a job and not given the freedom to do it. Worse yet, is when a leader openly appears to have faith in his team members abilities, only to question it at a later point or micromanage it behind the scenes.

I recently read a book by Stewart Emery, Ivan Misner & Rick Sapio, called Who’s in Your Room? It essentially asks the question: What do the people you keep around say about who you are? It challenges you to take a look at the people you’ve let into your life, determine how each of them affect you, and add to or take away from your goals and your ideal vision for your life or business.

It occurred to me while reading it, that a similar phenomenon exists when you’re building a team. The people you choose to bring on board have a great impact on what you do collectively as a team. Each person’s attributes, characteristics, choices, and beliefs affect the environment of your team. So how do you know who to let into your room? It starts by determining your core values through an exercise that takes you through the experiences you’ve had in your life where you felt most proud or accomplished, and from there determine what values guided you in these situations.

A commonality amongst all teams is the need for a leader who exhibits CEO-like behaviors. What ClientWise has discovered in our team-focused coaching approach is that, oftentimes, even those financial advisors with the best production aren’t necessarily in possession of the traits held by the most successful leaders. These traits need to be crafted and honed over time.” Amongst common behaviors is:

“I engage with and inspire others toward creating a compelling common intent.”

As I mentioned in Part I of this blog, there are several reasons to start a team. Perhaps you’ve reached a point where your production has plateaued and you need to make a change to see significant increase; maybe two or more specializations are coming together to form a more comprehensive group; perhaps an up-and-coming advisor is ready to take on greater responsibility and learning; or else an older advisor starting to think about retirement and wants to begin laying the groundwork for his succession planning.